DeFi protocols for loanable funds: interest rates, liquidity and market efficiency
File(s)DeFi_Protocols_for_Loanable_Funds.pdf (1.36 MB)
Accepted version
OA Location
Author(s)
Gudgeon, Lewis
Werner, Sam
Perez Hernandez, Daniel
Knottenbelt, William
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
We coin the term Protocols for Loanable Funds (PLFs)to refer to pro-tocols which establish distributed ledger-based markets for loanable funds. PLFs are emerging as one of the main applications within De-centralized Finance (DeFi), and use smart contract code to facilitate the intermediation of loanable funds. In doing so, these protocols allow agents to borrow and save programmatically. Within these protocols, interest rate mechanisms seek to equilibrate the supply and demand for funds. In this paper, we review the methodologies used to set interest rates on three prominent DeFi PLFs, namely Compound, Aave and dYdX. We provide an empirical examination of how these interest rate rules have behaved since their inception in response to differing degrees of liquidity. We then investigate the market efficiency and inter-connectedness between multiple protocols, examining first whether Uncovered Interest Parity holds within a particular protocol and second whether the interest rates for a particular token market show dependence across protocols,developing a Vector Error Correction Model for the dynamics.
Date Issued
2020-10-21
Date Acceptance
2020-08-07
Citation
Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2020), 2020, pp.92-112
Publisher
ACM
Start Page
92
End Page
112
Journal / Book Title
Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2020)
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.
Identifier
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3419614.3423254
Source
2nd ACM Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2020)
Publication Status
Published
Start Date
2020-10-21
Finish Date
2020-10-23
Coverage Spatial
New York City, NY, USA
Date Publish Online
2020-10-21